What is the Gold Challenge?

The Gold Challenge is a unique opportunity for everyone to feel the excitement of London2012 by taking on multiple Olympic and Paralympic sports and raising money for charity. Participants challenge themselves to do 30, 20, 10 or 5 sports. This can be done as an individual or as part of a team of 2-30 participants. So whether the challenge is to try multiple new sports, push to the next level in favourite sports or create the most extreme sports challenge ever – the Gold Challenge will both motivate and inspire! The Gold Challenge expects more than 200,000 participants to take part, raising over £20 million for charity and driving demand in grassroots sports. Working in partnership with:

•  Sport England

•  BOA

•  Paralympics GB

Who can take part?

The Gold Challenge is passionate about encouraging everyone to participate in sport – irrespective of age, physical ability or locality:

•  Individuals and teams (place of work/ study/friends)

•  Youth (U16) and family version (to be launched in 2011)

•  Student activity

•  Paralympic sports included

•  Corporates

How to take part

Participants register for free, choose their challenge (their sports) and choose their cause (we have over 100 charities to choose from).

A sport can be completed in one of three ways:

•  By completing at least three hours of coached activity

•  By competing in a NGB affiliated tournament

•  By completing an endurance event such as a marathon, triathlon or 10k open water swim

The Gold Challenge has a points scoring system allowing participants to score points based on the number of sports they complete and their achievements within those sports.

Participation points are scored as follows:

•  10 points for completing 3 – 5 hours of coached activity

•  20 points for completing 6 or more hours of coached activity

•  20 points for completing a sport by playing competitively (in a NGB recognised competition)

•  20 points for finishing one of the endurance events

Bonus points will be awarded based on objective criteria wherever the sport allows, e.g. times for running and swimming events. For other sports they are based on recognised performance indicators or generic  performance milestones, e.g. basic skills achieved, club level, county level.

The Gold Challenge team is on hand to help participants choose their sports and tailor the challenge to suit them.

Information for sports clubs

The Gold Challenge is working with the National Governing Bodies for sports across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that the challenge works for each sport. Once a participant has selected their sport, they can learn about it through each sport’s specific pages on the website. The website then directs participants to where they can find local activity (clubs, coaches, development officers, festivals, events competition or other) to complete the sport. The participant attends the sessions with the criterion for completing the sport ready to be signed off by the coach once they are complete.

There are many benefits for sports clubs to be involved with the Gold Challenge:

•  Increased participation for the club/area. This is a great opportunity where participants are choosing to engage with a sport for 3+ hours.

•  Coaches/clubs still charge for the activity. Participants know they must pay for sessions where a fee would normally apply. This is the clubs to keep.

The Gold Challenge:

•  Will present participants who are engaged in trying new sports

•  Is an opportunity to find new members

•  Is a revenue stream, with no additional marketing costs for clubs

•  Will capitalise on the excitement generated in the build up to London 2012 and is a truly unique multi-sport programme

•  Will launch a massive nationwide marketing campaign designed to signpost people to NGBs and clubs

•  Will also have a volunteer and coach based arm

For more information on how each sport is being engaged with the Gold Challenge and how you/your club could get involved please contact your NGB/ Development Officer or the Gold Challenge Sports Team on 020 7299 0914.

Information for wider sports stakeholders

Are you a wider stakeholder in the sporting market?

•  A corporate sports provider

•  Local authority

•  County Sports Partnership

•  Leisure provider

We are always looking for ways to grow the Gold Challenge and would be interested to talk to you. Please contact the Gold Challenge Sports Team on 020 7299 0914.

About Gold Challenge

The Gold Challenge is a not for profit organisation. Any profit from the Gold Challenge will be used to fund grassroots sports initiatives. The Gold Challenge is working in partnership with Limelight Sports, the company behind the creation and delivery of some of the UK’s largest grassroots sports events including Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon, London Youth Games, Swimathon, Sport Relief Miles and Sky Rides.

For more information on the Gold Challenge please contact the Sports Team on 020 7299 0914 or sports@goldchallenge.org